Tandemworld Newsletter for July 2009

Availability Digest Introduces HP’s NonStop Synchronous Gateway

HP has announced its new Synchronous Gateway, which allows third-party data-replication engines to participate in transactions coordinated by the NonStop Transaction Management Facility (TMF). The Availability Digest reviews this product release and how synchronous data replication from NonStop source databases now can be provided with no collisions nor data loss. Also in the Digest is The Ubiquitous Internet. It examines the trend for companies to place critical services on the less-than-reliable Internet and the havoc that results when no backup strategies are in place.

Other recent Availability Digest articles:

· CommerzBank survived the World Trade Center disaster with an OpenVMS active/active split-site cluster.

· Our six-month round-up of Never Agains includes a government confiscation of an entire data center for days.

· Data Center in a Box highlights the pioneering by Google of data-center containerization and how industry giants are now embracing the concept.

· Cloud computing can be dangerous to your health. Many who have embraced this emerging business model have encountered turbulence from the cloud’s current levels of availability, data integrity, and security.

Digest Managing Editor Dr. Bill Highleyman, who offers both single and multiple-day seminars on continuous availability, is seeking input from Tandemworld readers about their preferences for attending or presenting seminars in a real-world classroom setting versus a virtual setting online. Is group interaction easier or harder with one method, more boring or less boring, more time-effective or less? Please share your thoughts and experiences by contacting Bill at editor@availabilitydigest.com.

The Digest is free online and focuses on continuous processing architectures, with particular attention given to active/active technology. www.availabilitydigest.com

TANDsoft Time-Zone Virtualization Presentation Available Online

NonStop customers unable to attend Jack Di Giacomo’s HPTF breakout session “Time-Sensitive Applications in Virtualized Environments” are invited to review the presentation’s slides in the Resources section (http://www.tandsoft.com/files/home/Resources.html) of the TANDsoft website.

The presentation focuses on how companies who consolidate their IT environments face the dilemma of hosting multiple applications with different date/time requirements on a single system with just one system clock. Addressed are the challenges of providing each application with its own virtual clock and calendar for development, testing, production, disaster recovery, and quality assurance activities.

Jack recently presented an audiocast to an internal HP audience. The audiocast included two of TANDsoft’s products, OPTA2000 and the new Enscribe-2-SQL Toolkit. OPTA2000 is a clock- and time-zone simulator for HP NonStop servers: S-series, Itanium, and Blades. It allows existing production, development, and backup systems to support worldwide consolidated environments. The Toolkit permits easy conversion of Enscribe calls to SQL/MP or SQL/MX statements. It offers a flexible, affordable alternative to more expensive conversion products or manual conversion techniques.

Audiocast slides also are available in the Resources section of the TANDsoft website.

TANDsoft’s HP NonStop solutions include time-zone virtualization, time-sensitive application testing, file synchronization for disaster recovery, and the new Enscribe-2-SQL toolkit. www.tandsoft.com

Did You Miss "Introduction to SOA"?

NuWave's most recent webinar on the basics of SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) was a great success.

Geared toward NonStop users, it provided a detailed definition of SOA, development benefits of SOA and Web Services, answers to common questions, as well as other helpful topics.

If you missed out and would like a copy of the PowerPoint or a recording of the webinar, please email Gabrielle at gguerrera@nuwave-tech.com.

CONNECT / PROTECT / MODERNIZE / STREAMLINE

Thanks to all of you who stopped by at comForte's stand at HPTF last month and in taking interest in our products and solutions. For those of you who could not make it this year here is a brief summary of the key product highlights that we showed at HPTF.

NEW: SecurSSO - Single Sign-on

SecurSSO uses the Kerberos authentication protocol in order to deliver true single sign-on access to NonStop systems. With SecurSSO, users can log onto HP NonStop Servers through their existing Windows credentials and gain single sign-on access to all authorized applications, including TACL and other NonStop services. comForte has implemented the Kerberos network authentication protocol in its J6530, MR-Win6530, SecurSH, and SecurFTP/SSH products providing true single-sign on capability on NonStop systems. For more information please go to www.comforte.com/secursso.

comForte kicked-off SecurSSO Partner Program for terminal emulation vendors. Crystal Point and CAIL were first to express interest in supporting comForte’s single sign-on initiative by implementing the Kerberos authentication protocol in their emulation products.

NEW: SecurTN/3270

The comForte SecurTN product has been enhanced to support the 3270 emulation protocol. This will allow the new SecurTN/3270 product to replace 3270 Telnet Servers (such as HP's TN3270 product or ACI's ICE TN3270) in a TCP/IP environment. In conjunction with the existing comForte product for Dynamic Pathway Terminal Management, SecurTN/3270 supports the dynamic creation and allocation of Pathway TERMs. For details, please see www.comforte.com/securtn .

SafePoint Alarms

SafePoint Alarms provides security administrators with a sophisticated way to monitor all NonStop security events. With SafePoint Alarms, organizations can intelligently aggregate all Safeguard events, configure a range of alarms, and automate notifications and other responses to security threats. SafePoint Alarms acts as the central events collector which helps satisfy PCI and other monitoring requirements. For more details please download the SafePoint Alarms product data sheet from www.comforte.com/safepoint.

Last but not least, please mark your calendar for the joint GTUG/CONNECT event in Darmstadt, Germany, November 18 - 20, 2009.

If you want to learn more about the above products or if you want to find out more about what comForte has to offer please visit www.comforte.com

NonStop - A Running Commentary – July, 09

The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author
and shouldn’t be viewed as reflecting any views
of his current or past employer

The popularity of the LinkedIn user group Real Time View has certainly come as a pleasant surprise and by the time this publication is released, membership will probably have climbed to nearly 400! It is no secret that this has been an exercise in the power of social networking, a topic that I have been exploring for some time. But even though the “marketing budget” has been limited to just the occasional emails (and I apologize profusely should any of you consider my basic promotional emails as spam – it’s all the budget I have after all) I am still very much surprised by how much traction the discussions posted to the user group generate among the membership.

What it does tell me is that there is a significant global audience interested in all things to do with NonStop, even if the matter is approached from some pretty obscure angles. Likewise, it should come as no surprise that my entries on the user group discussion forums pull material from articles posted to the blog of the same name, Real Time View (www.itug-connection.blogspot.com), with several discussions coming from comments generated as a result of the content in a blog posting. In the most recent posting Change is everywhere! I built on a theme that’s been a concern of mine for some time – what’s next for NonStop? What new market could there be that would be a natural fit for NonStop? What changes can we expect to see?

When Tandem first burst into the marketplace in the late ‘70s – yes, in case you missed it NonStop will be celebrating it’s 35^th birthday later this year (check out the posting of May 28^th ‘09: Happy 35th, Tandem!) – Tandem computers enjoyed an almost symbiotic relationship with the application BASE24. Together, they carved out a niche that remains dominated by NonStop to this day. But, as Bob Dylan sang, “the Times, they are a-Changin’” and there’s no assurance that both HP and ACI will continue to derive the mutual benefits from BASE24 running on NonStop as they have enjoyed for more than three decades.

So what’s next for NonStop? If BASE24 users, either through attrition or by design, leave NonStop could another niche emerge that would be as large, or larger, that would ensure the future relevance of NonStop? Or has the product lifecycle run its course and, as with all technology and product lifecycles, NonStop deployments are destined to simply taper off to almost nothing at all. Even for those of us who muse on how NonStop has become nothing more than a “cash-cow” for HP are there any prospects at all for correcting this clear decline in popularity.

Before I milk this storyline any further – let me say how impressed I am with the success of NonStop on Blades. This has certainly contributed to stemming some of the tide, and there’s clear evidence that the ROIs involved are significant and in these economic times proving to be quite attractive. But it’s mostly a migration-kicker with few new customers being attracted to NonStop as a result. In other words, even where it keeps existing customers in the fold, including BASE24 users, a lot more has to be done to ensure NonStop remains relevant and generates the revenues HP must be demanding in order to keep the product line supported.

The marketplace I have been looking at is the advent of Cloud Computing – in particular, the “private clouds” being put together within corporations that see an opportunity to leverage the style of computing big players like Amazon and Google have championed for a couple of years now. In my most recent blog posting Change is everywhere! I reference an InformationWeek article that quotes IBM as having said that “the cloud market will grow to $66 billion by 2012!” In three years time and from a pretty small base so far – a marketplace the size of what Microsoft generates as revenues (in a good year).

As for NonStop’s participation, I have bee arguing for some time now that the traditional strengths of NonStop play well for NonStop to become the gateway or, what I have begun to consider is a better choice in names (and something others brought to my attention, mind you), the access appliance! Anyone who “googles” access appliance will find that it’s not a new term and has roots in the networking industry, but in the context of cloud computing I can see a role for a product like NonStop providing the secure, high-volume (highly available, highly scalable, and with data integrity) front-end that many in the commercial world would want to see in place. After all, how different is the cloud from a deployment of heterogeneous servers in any financial institution today that is front-ended by a NonStop accessible by any mix of ATM’s, POS’s, and Internet client devices?

OK, so I am not seeing a rush to NonStop just yet – but in talking with a number of ISVs looking into building product for the cloud, the number of times NonStop has come up is beginning to make an impression. No, none of them as best as I can tell, is prototyping a NonStop server under the product banner of “Silver Lining” no matter how tempted they may be! But if ISVs are talking NonStop – somewhere out in the IT user landscape, smart architects must be giving some thought to the possibility.

All it may take is for a highly publicized success story to appear in any trade publication before the rest of the CIO / CTO community quickly follows. And should that situation arise, and momentum builds, then we just may see the development of a new product lifecycle where NonStop begins to rapidly “take-off” that more than compensates for any tapering we see with existing product lifecycles.

A long-shot still – but definitely something to keep an eye out for and who knows, potentially something many of us familiar with NonStop will have no trouble accommodating in our data center. Returning to the comment about the success HP is having with NonStop on Blades – in many data centers, the CIO / CTO crowd may not even be able to identify the NonStop servers present in the BladeSystem!

But having the cloud always accessible, no matter what (outages, migrations, upgrades, etc.) has to appeal to even the most jaded technologist in this crowd! Maintaining control over the mix of Linux, Unix, and Windows servers within the cloud, transparently, surely has to be attractive to those who value the inherent flexibility of cloud computing. And with other vendors expecting this marketplace to be extremely large, this could prove to be the natural fit (for NonStop) many of us have spent much of the past decade looking for!

Richard Buckle

HP – ITUG:                          Board of Directors (2000 – 2006)    Chairman (2004 & 2005)

IBM – SHARE:                  Board of Directors (2007 – 2008)

Real Time View blog:           www.itug-connection.blogspot.com

LinkedIn User Group:           Real Time View

Ross Systems International FINFO Update

Ross Systems International, are pleased to announce that there is an ever growing interest in FINFO which has resulted in sales. The principle use for the product appears to be for the management reporting of the disposition of file resources. One client has reported that they are managing to save up to 12 man days effort per year, they hastened to add the their development teams also found the advanced file search capability really useful as also did certain members of HP’s own performance team in EMEA who are using it to look for measure files.

For those who are not up to speed yet, FINFO is a utility to be used on HP NonStop ™ Systems to display Guardian file information. The file information can be selected by a number of criteria, it is then sorted on a specified key and displayed in one of a number of formats. User Totals showing file usage are also displayed at the end of each subvolume, volume and system displays.

We have given a number of open trials of FINFO in the past but these have now ceased and if you would like to trial it please contact us and we will give you a short term license to try it out. The software and manual is already on the web ready for downloading, but it will not operate without a license, so you will need to mail us your details so that we can send you a license. Installation is then a very simple matter.

We are still continuing to develop this product and will produce a Java enabled version in the Autumn, wait for further announcements.

Please contact Rupert Stanley of Ross Systems International Limited at rupert@rsi-ns.com or
+44-1206-392923 for additional information or to order .

Information on RSI’s products including FINFO can be found on http://www.rsi-ns.com/

User Groups

BITUG SIG Meeting: Security, Risk, Compliance 7th October 2009

Please join the BITUG SIG for a meeting on Security, Risk and Compliance. For more information, please visit http://www.bitug.com

2009 CTUG Fall Conference 20th October 2009

CTUG is pleased to announce that our 2009 Fall Conference will be held on October 20st with a Training Day on October 21st, 2009.

As a result of overwhelming popular response to last year's venue, the Conference and Education Session will once again take place at the Hewlett-Packard Canada Head Quarters, 5150 Spectrum Way, Mississauga, Ontario.

We will be providing more details as they become available, so for now please Save The Date!

http://www.ctug.ca/English/DefaultEnglish.htm

INUG Autumn Conference 18th November 2009.

The event will be held at HP Los Rozas, Madrid. For further information please contact via email info@inug-connect.org

Please mark your calendar for the joint GTUG/CONNECT event in Darmstadt, Germany, November 18 - 20, 2009. More information will be available at www.gtug.de

Tandemworld within EMEA

Tandemworld specialise in the recruitment of HP NonStop / Tandem specialists.

We Currently have a number of Highly skilled NonStop / Tandem professionals seeking new projects and assignments

within the EMEA Region.

Do you have Project Work that you need assistance on? Hardware upgrades to perform?

These professionals are available on a short or long Term Basis (1 Week to 1 year +) at Very Competitive rates.

We can also supply Permanent employees and other technical resources e.g. IBM, Unix, Unisys DEC/VMS etc.

If you have a requirement for Contract or Permanent Resources or require further information please contact us :-

+44 (0) 20 8304 7979

info@tandemworld.net

www.tandemworld.net

Looking for a Solution or an answer to a particular problem ASK Tandemworld. We will contact the vendors for you and find a suitable solution that meets for current and future needs.